


Nemesis

by dearmoonlight



Series: kitten paws [1]
Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, i refuse to tag this as jealousy, knights as family, other characters are there but like...in mention, so don't let the summary fool you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmoonlight/pseuds/dearmoonlight
Summary: The point is that it doesn’t matter how you look at it: Mao does not get jealous. It’s a fact.So, having stated that, all that’s left is putting a name to the feeling that fills his chest lately at the sight of this new enemy.
Relationships: Isara Mao/Sakuma Ritsu
Series: kitten paws [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601098
Comments: 4
Kudos: 95





	Nemesis

Mao is not a jealous person.

That’s a fact. He’s not one to feel envious of what others have, and never in his life has he had a problem with sharing. His parents always encouraged generosity. Ritsu could take anything that was Mao’s, and he wouldn’t even bat an eye at it. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

And, okay, maybe he sometimes feel an uncomfortable pang at the bottom of his stomach at the idea of Ritsu drifting away from him and getting closer to other people as the years go by, but it’s not really important. Everyone is afraid of growing up. Mao will get used to it.

The point is that it doesn’t matter how you look at it: He does not get jealous. It’s a fact.

So, having stated that, now all that’s left is putting a name to the feeling that fills his chest lately at the sight of his fluffy new enemy.

It starts like this:

“Maakun” Ritsu greets, smiling absently. Mao knows this, because he can slightly see the side of his friend’s face. Just a tiny part of it.

Because Ritsu is not looking at him.

“Ritsu.” Mao says, cautiously. “It’s ten in the morning.”

Which means that Mao just came to wake Ritsu up. Which means that Ritsu should be sleeping. Which means that something weird is happening, because any living creature that has known a Sakuma for more than thirty minutes knows that they just stay in bed as much as they can by daylight, especially if it’s a Saturday.

“I know, Maakun, I’m not an idiot~” Ritsu looks at him then. He’s stroking something that lays in his arm, and Mao needs exactly three seconds to pinpoint what the bundle of fur is.

“Since when do you have a cat?” He asks, frowning.

“Since…a few hours ago or so.” Ritsu smiles faintly when the kitten purrs, and he looks away from Mao again. “Her name is Tsukinyaga.”

Mao nods, a smile tugging at his lips as he approaches to touch the cat. She immediately shies away from his fingers and further into Ritsu’s embrace. The hiss that comes out of her little body is a clear warning to back off, and Mao lets his hand fall with a startled look. For a second he’s sure that Ritsu will let the poor thing go face first into the ground, because his reaction to someone being so openly mean to Mao is always over the top, but the rule apparently just applies to humans.

“Ah~ She seems scared, Maakun. Did you pet a dog in your way here?”

Mao shakes his head in a negative, and Ritsu sighs.

“Well, I guess she’s just a shy one, uh.”

Mao looks at the cat. Tsukinyaga stares back, unblinking.

He knows it’s stupid, but for some reason it feels like she’s mocking him.

* * *

* * *

It’s not that Mao hates cats. Actually, one could even say that he loves them. His sister’s used to ask for their leftovers to feed an stray that hanged out around the neighborhood, and he always made extra rice so she could take as much as she wanted. And honestly, Ritsu is almost like the human version of a especially lazy cat. So. There’s that.

It’s not his fault that this kitten in particular seem fixated in doing everything in her power to bother him.

In the surprisingly short period of one week, the cat has already scratched him thrice. She also has thrown down his favorite mug, tried to bite his ankle and peed in his designated pillow in Ritsu’s room. And all of it happened when he was physically close to his friend, because apparently Tsukinyaga is not willing to go anywhere near Mao, but she doesn’t want to lose her now permanent spot in Ritsu’s lap either.

The eighth day, Mao googles _“can a cat hate you personally?”_ He gets in a very interesting discussion about felines’ emotional range with a random stranger in the internet ( _their name is “furry_lover”, so they must love animals a lot!_ ), but ends up with nothing clear about how to fix the issue.

Mao knows that the kitten is not going away anytime soon. It’s supposed to be a Knights thing: they found a whole litter in the school grounds and ended up adopting one each, since _“a good knight would never let a family be broken!”_ Leo’s words, apparently.

(Mao doesn’t even know the rest of the kittens’ names, but he thinks that “Tsukinyaga” is proof enough of their inability to choose a good one.)

So, they meet up once in a while to let the kittens play, and the rest of the time Ritsu’s the only family that Tsukinyaga has left. Which by all accounts means that she has to be dotted upon all the time. Or so he seems to think.

Mao will get used to it. At some point. Eventually.

* * *

* * *

Except because the cat is restless in her mission of making Mao’s life as miserable as possible.

Mao already had his suspicions about it, but it becomes clear the fateful day that he decides to nap with Ritsu.

Now, that’s not an usual occurrence. His friend is trying to grow out of his habit of sleeping the day away, and Mao is supportive of this. He’s also the president of the student council now, so he’s usually too busy to allow himself some time to rest.

But Ritsu pulls him into the bed by the front of his shirt. Hard. And then he proceeds to encase Mao into his arms and kiss him softly, which is always a good way to make him pliant to his demands. And with the warmth of his boyfriend around him and a soft bed under both of them, what is a boy supposed to do? He falls asleep with Ritsu stroking his hair and humming softly.

He doesn’t know how much time it passes, but when he wakes up is to an insistent meowing. 

Mao opens his eyes, trying to blink the drowsiness away. His skyline is full of Ritsu: soft features, pale skin against dark hair, and long, long eyelashes casting shadows against his cheekbones. 

Ritsu always manages to leave him breathless when they wake up together. 

Mao leans in to kiss him softly, forgetting about the demanding cat. Tsukinyaga’s meows become just background noise when Ritsu makes an appreciative sound and slides his arms around Mao’s waist, keeping him close as he deepens the kiss, both moving in unison with lazy motions and gentle touches.

That’s the moment that Tsukinyaga chooses to jump over them, apparently tired of being ignored. Mao yelps and rolls over, falling from the edge of the bed and butt first into the ground. 

He shoots an angry look at the cat, just to find her curling up in Ritsu’s lap without a care in the world. She purrs when he strokes her fur.

“Ah~ You want me to pay attention to you?”

 _Yes_ , Mao thinks bitterly as he bites the insides of his cheek, _I kind of want you to_.

Ritsu keeps petting the cat’s fur with a gentle smile that used to be reserved to Mao only. He lets himself fall into the floor with a frustrated sigh.

* * *

* * *

In his defense, Mao is not the only one who can’t stand the cat.

It seems like Tsukinyaga has been collecting enemies anywhere she goes. Or at least that’s what Mao thinks when he enters the kitchen one morning just to see Sakuma Rei holding the cat a few centimeters away from his face, fingers digging harmlessly into her fur.

“I don’t know from what hell did you crawl up” he hiss, squinting. “But there’s a /status quo/ that you have to respect if you desire to keep living in this precious world of ours. Ritsu is /my/ brother. My dear little brother, not yours, and if you try to steal him away from me I’m afraid you’ll get to know the wrath of the so called Demon King, you pretentious-“

Mao clears his throat. Rei jumps, unconsciously clutching the kitten to his chest. Tsukinyaga hisses and tries to reach his face with her claws, immediately becoming a very fluffy killing machine. As soon as Rei lets her go with a yelp, she sprints out of the room. Mao can hear her paws colliding against the wood of the hallway and up the stairs, probably to Ritsu’s room.

Rei stares at him. Mao doesn’t even flinch. For just one second, they seem to connect to a spiritual level.

“She’ll find a way to tell Ritsu, you know.”

Rei sighs. It’s the tired sound of an old man that has already lived through too many misfortunes.

Mao proceeds to turn into his heels and make his way to Ritsu’s room, hoping that his boyfriend won’t ever discover how much he relates to Rei right now.

* * *

* * *

“Eichi used to have a cat too.” Keito says, and it almost sound nostalgic.

They’re in the backstage of their latest live, sweat still sticking to their skin and the sound of Ryuseitai’s song just as a background noise. Mao looks at the Instagram post that has sparked the comment: Ritsu smiles at him from the screen of his phone, Tsukinyaga resting in his shoulders with those big eyes of hers fixated in the camera. She looks angelic, like a kitty from a children movie.

Lies. All lies. A deceiving little demon, that’s what she is.

“How was it called?”

“Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli.”

Mao snorts before he can stop himself, but Keito doesn’t seem offended by the sound.

“Your Italian is pretty good, senpai.”

“Eichi just made me repeat it many times.” Keito shrugs, but there’s something warm hiding away in his voice. Mao looks down to his phone again: Ritsu’s profile is full of pictures of Tsukinyaga, and Mao has to scroll down a little to find the first one that features him too.

It’s funny, because not so long ago Ritsu refused to make a social media account unless Mao appeared in all of his profile photos. 

This ugly feeling in his chest has to be getting worse, if even Keito can notice the tense line of his shoulders when he’s looking at Tsukinyaga. He sighs, finally putting his phone down to look at his senpai. Keito is cleaning his glasses with a solemn expression, as if this is the most important task one can perform.

“What happened to Machiavelli?”

“Cats are not allowed in hospitals.” he says, shrugging. Mao’s mouth feel dry at the thought of a little emperor sitting all alone in a too white room, just a kid missing his pet while he waits uncountable hours for a recovery that might never come. “Someone in his service forgot to close the door once.”

“So he ran away?”

“Got run over by a limousine.”

Keito’s gaze seems to darken at the memory, and Mao feel his own breath hitch when he tries to imagine it. Sometimes is easy to forget that Eichi is a human, too – a very special one, gifted and cursed by god at the same time, but a human nevertheless. He tries to smile, even as the fake image of a blonde kid crying his eyes out over the death of a friend is stuck in his brain, and lets out a theatrical sigh.

“Maybe it’s time for you to get him a new cat, senpai.”

Keito doesn’t smile, but his eyes seem to soften a little when they fall onto Mao. He seems to be looking very far away, to a distant memory. Then he huffs and shakes his head with something that borders in indulgence.

“Yes, maybe I should.”

Chiaki enters the room with a loud laugh then, patting Midori in the back with a big smile plastered across his face, and the conversation fades as they start talking about the concert.

* * *

* * *

Sometimes, Ritsu drags Mao to Knights’ backstage. Since the rivalry between their units subsided, not even the fans seem alarmed at seeing them exit the place together once the live’s over. They don’t do anything special, and Mao has to wait while Knights change into their costumes and do a last minute stretch, but it’s worth it just to see the look in Ritsu’s face when they come back after the last song and he’s there, smiling and ready to catch him if he claims to be too tired to keep walking.

Today, however, Ritsu’s phone ring into his pocket just as Sena is nagging him about his disheveled jacket. He answers the call with a smirk in his face that only seem to grow bigger when his friend frowns at him, obviously upset at being ignored. He keeps trying to fix his clothes as Ritsu speaks to the person’s in the other side of the line.

The conversation is a short one, but Mao can see from his position in the sofa how Ritsu’s expression goes from slightly satisfied to worried, and from that to a strange mix between serious and resigned that he can’t quite pinpoint. He presses his lips in a thin line, and Mao hears him whisper “You are useless” with a bitter tone that he hasn’t used in some time.

Then Ritsu hangs up. He’s looking down at his own boots when he says:

“Tsukinyaga ran away.”

There’s a second of silence as the news sink in. Arashi is the first one to break it, she lets out an alarmed “How?” as she surges forward, encircling Ritsu into her arms faster than Mao could have ever done it.

“Quit it, Nacchan, I’m fine- That good-for-nothing I have for a brother says that my parents let the window open, and he’s been looking for the last hour and a half but-“

“What do you want to do?” says Arashi, who has let him go just to put her hands in his shoulders.

“We can cover up for you.” Sena intervenes, and Mao is surprised to hear how cautiously soft his voice sounds. “If you want to look for her.”

Mao thinks about what Keito told him. About Eichi’s cat dying because of a dumb mistake, about a sick child all alone in a hospital room missing a friend that woul never come back. The situation can’t compare, not now that Ritsu has found his place among Knights and by his side, but a gloomy feeling still washes over him. 

Mao cuts in then, his voice ringing through the room with his best reliable tone, the one he used when Keito wasn’t sure if they would have everything ready in time for a new event.

“I’ll do it.” Ritsu turns to him then, and the worried look that he’s obviously trying to conceal makes the pit of his stomach turn in an uncomfortable way. “I’ll go and look for her, you guys focus in the live.”

“Maakun-“

“Trust me, okay?” he takes Ritsu’s hand, fingers intermingling briefly. When he pulls away, he’s smiling. “I’ll find her.”

The tense line of Ritsu’s shoulders seem to soften a little. Mao can see Arashi’s mouthing a “thank you” over his friend shoulder just before he turns and walks to the door, already fishing his phone out of his pocket. He waits until the door is closed behind him to dial a number he knows by heart.

“Hokuto?” he says. “I need your help.”

* * *

* * *

Apparently, the thing goes like this: Hokuto calls Makoto, who calls Subaru, who calls Chiaki, and of course if there’s a problem, Ryuseitai has to help! And then they tell Anzu, who has the power to congregate all the idols of Yuumenosaki. So when Mao gets to his neighborhood, there’s at least twenty idols looking for a little kitten. The old woman that lives across the street is whipped by the situation, and when Mao asks her about Tsukinyaga she makes him promise that he’ll invite his friends around more often.

He finds Shinobu under a car, because apparently he’s trying to think like a cat. Hinata found a stray in a tree and thought that it was Tsukinyaga, which leaded to a group chat being created to send pictures of any possible suspect. A dog tries to bite Nazuna when he asks their owner about a kitty. Madara charms the hell out of the market’s cashier, and he leaves the store with an ice-cream and two toys for cats. Tsukinyaga is still nowhere to be found, even if Mao looks every place he can think of.

It’s been almost two hours when he hears a meow coming from his neighbor’s yard.

Mao stills. He’d recognize that frustrating sound anywhere.

He looks around, making sure that no one’s watching. Mao’s always been the golden child of the neighborhood, the nice kid that never messed around and followed all the rules without making a fuss, the one who never cried too loud or kicked the ball against a window. So most of them would lose their heads if they saw him climbing a fence and jumping into private propriety just to catch a cat.

The first thing Tsukinyaga does, once she’s into his arms is lean further into his embrace with a satisfied purr. Mao feels a rush of relief flooding through his body and leaving it in the form of a sigh. He strokes her fur gently, and a smile starts forming at his lips. Maybe they could firm a truce, if just for Ritsu’s sake. He might have been too hard on her, his not-jealousy a thick wall between them. Maybe…

That’s the moment that Tsukinyaga chooses to scratch his cheek.

Mao yells, and he almost let her fall into the ground out of pure surprise. The cat clings to him, claws digging into his hoodie with a ferocious type of desperation. 

Mao takes a deep breath, dragging her close again, even as the new wound pounds in a dull kind of pain. There’s no valid “maybe” right now. She will always hate him.

Stupid cat.

_(Ritsu’s eyes glint up when he catches sigh of Tsukinyaga in Mao’s embrace. He smiles, the gesture brightening his whole face, and Mao thinks that the ache in his cheek is so, so worth it.)_

**Author's Note:**

> SO I DON'T KNOW IF YOU NOTICED....But english is not my mother language and this was a "no beta we die like men" kind of work.
> 
> It's super silly, and I swear it's by far one of my worst pieces but,,,sometimes a girl has the need to write about one of her favorites characters being super jealous of a cat.


End file.
